Apple giveth and Apple taketh away: features users miss in iOS 6

It's not just about Maps. Lots of smaller features were removed from iOS 6.

Last month's introduction of iOS 6 gave iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users many things, like Do Not Disturb, new call features, and increased Siri capabilities. iPhone 5 and 4S users now have a cool new Panorama mode in the Camera app, there's Facebook integration where once there was only Twitter, we can sync Reminders and Notes over iCloud, privacy controls have received a complete overhaul, and Passbook is showing some promise.

We also had some (major) things taken away from us with the release of iOS 6. The most obvious of these things is a consistent, built-in transit experience in Maps—or pretty much anything related to iOS 6 Maps at all. But Maps seems to be just about the only thing people tend to name when thinking about iOS 6's shortfalls—or is it? A number of Ars readers wrote me with their own stories about favorite features that used to be part of iOS 5 but were since removed in iOS 6. So, I reached out to the Ars staff and Twitter in order to see what other little things users were missing.

It turns out there are a number of smaller things that people really liked but can no longer access. There are also a few features that people would've liked to see Apple take just a little further. Below is a list of the most commonly mentioned items that are either no longer part of iOS 6 or should be part of iOS 6.

Bring back app gifting

iOS users used to be able to gift apps to other people right from inside the device. When you navigated to a particular app through the iOS App Store app, there was an option to "Gift This App" underneath the ratings and next to "Tell a Friend." This was particularly useful when it came to giving fun or interesting items to friends and family to check out, or for companies to gift apps to employees as a "thank you."

This is unfortunately no longer the case in iOS 6. As noted by Apple's own support document on the matter, this feature was part of iOS 5 and earlier (reverting is "usefully" listed as your only option if you want to continue to gift apps). This is undoubtedly thanks to some of the major App Store changes Apple has made since the release of iOS 6, but we can't see why this feature had to be taken away. Users can still gift apps to other iOS users, but it has to be done through iTunes on the Mac or Windows.

iTunes Match and deleting music

Users who subscribe to Apple's $25/year iTunes Match service were quite happy with the ability to delete specific songs from their iOS devices when the mood strikes. That was, of course, how things used to be with iOS 5.x, but it's apparently no longer the case with iOS 6. Who would want to delete individual tracks anyway? That's a fascist anti-album attitude there, son.

It turns out that this omission is quite irritating to iTunes Match users, though there is an inconvenient workaround for those committed to deleting music they don't want from their devices. Users can turn off iTunes Match altogether on their iDevices and then delete the track from the Music app—but this only works if you're trying to delete a song that was actually downloaded from iTunes Match. Turning off iTunes Match removes all other music that is available to you whether you want it there or not. You also have the option of going home and deleting it from your iTunes library. But then this wouldn't be a very post-PC world, now would it?

Podcasts and music: no longer living together in harmony

Not everyone likes to mix podcasts and music into one playlist, but those who do liked to do it—a lot. I'll admit that I've done this myself, especially when planning out a long flight or road trip. But since the introduction of Apple's new Podcasts app—which has had its ownchallenges when it comes to usability—Apple has continued to separate podcasts from the rest of the pack.

It's no longer easy (or possible, for that matter) for users to create on-the-go playlists within the Music app that include both music and podcasts. It's not even possible to create a playlist within iTunes on the desktop that has a mixture of music and podcasts to sync—you can make the playlist alright, but once you sync, the podcast won't show up in the same playlist on the iOS device.

Don't cry for me, Google Street View

Aside from built-in transit, it turns out that a lot of iOS users made use of Google Street View as part of iOS 5 (and previous) Maps. This was by far the most commonly mentioned item when I asked about missing features on Twitter. Users apparently liked being able to see exactly what a specific address or street looks like when they're navigating around on their iPhones. And some people (such as myself) have a poor sense of direction, so actual photos of the location you're looking for can be a huge help.

Some would argue that 3D flyover mode within iOS 6 Maps is meant to replace this feature, and to some degree, it can. The 3D flyover feature does allow you to see what certain buildings look like at different angles, but it doesn't quite fill in the gaps when it comes to walking or driving down an actual street at human level. What does a specific storefront look like in 3D flyover mode? You can't get close enough to tell. Additionally, many iOS users don't own devices that support 3D flyover mode—it's only supported on the iPhone 5 and 4S—meaning that iPhone 4, 3GS, and original iPad owners have now lost useful features as part of Maps with no real gains.

Give us a YouTube app that can run in the background again

One of the benefits to Apple's default YouTube app was that it could run in the background. Why would someone want to play YouTube videos (emphasis on videos) while doing other things on an iOS device? Sometimes videos show up and—in the case of video blogs or indie bands—all you want is to listen to the audio and you don't necessarily need to see someone's cat in order to get the full experience.

Apple got rid of its own YouTube app as part of iOS 6, however, which wasn't quite seen as a huge deal by most users. This was mostly because Google was quick to release its own YouTube app to replace it, along with a few new features that Apple had been sluggish to implement. But Google's new YouTube app can't run in the background like Apple's YouTube app did, which makes YouTube aficionados sad pandas when using their iOS devices. This is on Google's shoulders, not Apple's, but it's a point that was made often enough by iOS 6 users that we thought it was worth including.

Details that should have been implemented, but weren't

There will always be wish lists a mile long for features that aren't part of iOS 6, but there are some features that are just baby steps away from being great. We don't know what Apple's reasons are for not adding some of these things, but we hope to see them in a future update. They're not "pie in the sky" type wishes either, so Apple, if you're listening, this is what we'd like:

Allow us to add contacts to groups from iOS. You can create and manage groups from the Contacts app on the Mac, and you can use your iOS device to interact with groups when it comes to the Phone app and Do Not Disturb. iOS is clearly aware that the groups exist, but when you find yourself adding new contacts into the device itself, there's no way to add them to any particular group. If you want to group those new contacts, you have to sync the data over to your Mac and manage the groups there. Again, this is not very post-PC-friendly.

Shared Photo Streams should actually be sharable. I spoke highly about Shared Photo Streams in my iOS 6 review, only because I felt Photo Stream by itself was largely a pointless feature. But that doesn't mean it's perfect—the main problem with Shared Photo Streams is that Apple treats them like one-way blasts from one person to others. There's no way to add other parties to a shared stream so that they, too, can contribute photos. If you have a group of friends who like to share photos, every individual with an iOS device would have to create his or her own shared stream to push to everyone else. Wouldn't it be nice if you could add your siblings and cousins to one stream, and everyone could share in the fun?

Third-parties want hooks into Siri. Siri gained some great new features as part of iOS 6, like the ability to look up movie facts and times, and it gained a plethora of sports-related features too. You can now launch apps through Siri, and make Tweets or Facebook posts. But third-party apps still can't plug into Siri directly—apps that do plug into Siri (such as Yelp or OpenTable) are only able to do so with Apple's blessing for the time being. Some developers have been using a proxy server called SiriProxy to achieve this on their own, but it's less than ideal when compared against the potential to make direct API calls to Siri.

What would you add to the list of missing iOS 6 features? If there are enough unique suggestions in the comments, we may gather them up for a reader-based followup. So let's hear it!

Promoted Comments

My biggest complaint is the viewing of app details in the app store. Tapping an app in a list used to give a full screen page with description, screenshots, reviews, etc. Now it's just a small popup box in the middle of the screen.

The only thing that I truly hate about iOS 6 is a very basic feature that was removed from Mail. In every previous version, you could use Settings to control the minimum size of type in emails.That's been removed, so instead of nice, large type that I used to get, I'm stuck with the tiny default type size. It's been a serious irritation for me. I can't understand why something so basic — which was already implemented from the beginning — was removed.

I couldn't care less about most of the things on this list (I actually like the new Maps, for instance), but there are two that bother me:

1) not being able to delete individual songs from iTunes Match is more annoying than I originally thought it would be, and2) DEAR GOD THE PODCASTS APP IS A STEAMING PILE. Over the course of several updates, it has gotten marginally better, but it's still a battery hog, it still randomly marks old podcasts as unplayed (I had one feed where it marked all 300+ episodes as unplayed), it still randomly fails to auto-download. All of the hate that's been directed at the new Maps? Multiply that a thousandfold and that's how I feel about the Podcasts app. I think it's the worst piece of Apple software I've ever used.

(On the plus side, I'd imagine third-party devs are feeling some love; to prevent myself from throwing my shiny iPhone 5 at a brick wall, I gave up on the Apple app and switched to Downcasts, which works great.)

180 Reader Comments

Seriously not trolling here (huge Mac fan who recently converted from ios to android). I'd be interested in the iPhone again if they got something like Swype. IPhone rocks in a lot of ways, but using that keyboard was enough to get me to switch away. I'm sure Apple could make something like that that would work fantastically.

How fast are you with Swype?

I'm clocking in at about 100wpm with Siri.

A completely different method of inputting information is not always a valid replacement. Personally I prefer to discreetly Swype my messages and not broadcast them to the world.

Also unless Siri is vastly improved in iOS6 (isn't it mostly offloaded to a server) then I simply can't believe that you get close to 100wpm without most of the words being errors. The few times I've had to use an iOS5 iPhone at work I've tried Siri and been astounded at how useless it was at understanding what I was saying (in a quiet environment) and also doing something intelligent about it. I was under the impression this was some sort of superior feature of the iPhone (at least over Android) but it was truly rubbish. Does it need to 'learn' your voice over time or is it just supposed to work?

Also, just to add some balance, making an OS worse isn't just Apple's problem:

- My experience of using ICS has convinced me to stay on Gingerbread until I get and upgrade / new device running JellyBean. I won't bother listing the numerous issues but one annoyance was Google removing the ability to easily mount your phone as a USB flash drive instead forcing you to use a shared mounting system which is much slower and prone to issues IME.- Windows 8 forcing a tablet UI for desktop use (need I say more?).

@Jokotai - The ability to move apps to SD is apparently developer's choice. I've moved about 3/4 of my apps onto SD, but the option is greyed out for the rest of them. The same situation applied on my previous phone; I don't know exactly when Google added the ability to move 'em to SD, but it was at least two years ago.

If you have a group of friends who like to share photos, or even families, every individual with an iOS device would have to create his or her own shared stream to push to everyone else. Wouldn't it be nice if you could add your siblings and cousins to one stream, and everyone could share in the fun?

This is my biggest disappointment in iOS 6. I made a shared photo stream for my family, and we soon realised it was completely useless.

It's such a nice way to share photos, too. The way the comments and likes overlay on top of the photo is really nice. But it's pointless as it is currently implemented.

Absolutely get Jasmine if you have an iOS device. It is significantly better than Google's official YouTube app (and orders of magnitude better than Apple's previous iOS app).

I just installed it, and was presented with this notice:

Jase wrote:

Today, I received some communication from YouTube regarding the playback of videos from their licensed partners (namely for music/television). Unfortunately (much like Apple's YouTube app) Jasmin is now also restricted when attempting to play videos from some popular artists.

So please don't be surprised if you find some of your favourite music videos inaccessible.

Has anyone figured out how to flag multiple emails at once? I used to be able to do this in iOS 5, by tapping Edit, selecting a bunch of emails, tapping Mark and then Mark as Flagged. But now it the only option is Mark as Read. And the only way to flag an email is to do it from within the individual email.

@Jokotai - The ability to move apps to SD is apparently developer's choice. I've moved about 3/4 of my apps onto SD, but the option is greyed out for the rest of them. The same situation applied on my previous phone; I don't know exactly when Google added the ability to move 'em to SD, but it was at least two years ago.

I meant specifically the apps that Google has developed, not Android itself. A case in point is Google Music, which is fairly large app-wise, and cannot be moved to the SD card for the sake of having a widget.

Today, I received some communication from YouTube regarding the playback of videos from their licensed partners (namely for music/television). Unfortunately (much like Apple's YouTube app) Jasmin is now also restricted when attempting to play videos from some popular artists.

So please don't be surprised if you find some of your favourite music videos inaccessible.

That's very disappointing. I'm going to keep using it, but I hope this change doesn't become frustrating.

What are the sorts of videos that will be blocked? If it's mostly popular music videos then I'm guessing I won't notice.

On an iPad you can lock the orientation to portrait or landscape. On an iPhone, you can only lock it into portrait.

This has not changed in iOS 6.0.

However... there is a (clunky) workaround for both 5.0 and 6.0:

* setup AssistiveTouch to be enabled/disabled via a triple click of the home button * lock your orientation to portrait * use AssistiveTouch to rotate the device to landscape

I use it to lock my GPS app into landscape mode, because unless the orientation is locked it changes every few seconds on the motorcycle.

NulloModo: as far as I know, iOS 6.0 is probably faster on your 3GS than iOS 5.0. But I haven't tested it (I only have access to one 3GS and it is used for testing iOS 5.0), so you'll want to verify before trying it out.

What are the sorts of videos that will be blocked? If it's mostly popular music videos then I'm guessing I won't notice.

He said videos from "licensed partners (namely for music/television)", which could mean anything really. It could even include videos uploaded privately that that have a soundtrack which has been flagged by one of those partners.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the best content on YouTube stops working in Jasmin soon. Google's official app shows pre-roll ads (and sometimes even ads in the middle of the video), and most of that revenue goes to the "licensed partner" who claims to own the video. Jasmin isn't showing those ads as far as I can tell.

Somebody mentioned how bad the Podcasts app is, and I'd like to second that. I listen to a lot of podcasts and the app is a real step backwards. I don't mind if they want to break it out from the Music app, but the implementation is terrible.

The new LOOK is decent enough, but it's almost as though they cared more in this case about it looking cool in a demo than it providing what an actual podcast listener needs. My biggest gripe is that the text to describe each podcast episode is gone. (If there's any way to display it, I haven't found it. And the genius at the Apple store couldn't find it, either.) If I'm choosing an episode of a podcast to listen to, the description of that episode is vital. The goofy graphic of an old reel-to-reel tape deck is silly at best, ridiculous at worst.

If I'm streaming a podcast (instead of listening to a file already downloaded to the device), it will sometimes stop if there's a temporary lack of signal. But if the signal loss is more than just very brief, it won't ever start back. The play/pause button is unresponsive and the only way to get it to do anything is to play something else briefly and then restart that podcast. (At least it'll pick up in the right place.)

There are a number of things about the app that suggest that whoever designed the UI isn't someone who actually listens to a lot of podcasts. It's a UI that looks good, but it doesn't provide the information or functionality that we need. There are a few tweaks that I appreciate (such as the ability to go backwards in 10-second chunks instead of 30-second chunks), but it's a stinking pile of doggie poop for the most part, IMO. (And I'm not even covering the generally bugginess that is common with a completely new app. I'm just talking about really horrendous design decisions.)

iPad multiuser (but with shared apps, as it is on OS X). I don't care if they do it with retina scans, fingerprints, or even an optional password, but this would be a huge plus for families who share iPads (which is a lot).

Over the months I have downloaded/checked out > 600 apps. Most of them are not stored on my iPad. When I want to briefly use something I downloaded ages ago but can't remember the name of, I have to wade through hundreds of apps I have no interest in.

I used to be able to just swipe the app to hide it but now I have to do it via the PC that I rarely use. And I don't have the room on my iPad to keep all the stuff I only use occasionally. I often check out new apps that are on offer and then delete them because I have no need for them.

What possible harm could be done from hiding them on an iDevice? I can unhide on the PC if I change my mind.

iPad multiuser (but with shared apps, as it is on OS X). I don't care if they do it with retina scans, fingerprints, or even an optional password, but this would be a huge plus for families who share iPads (which is a lot).

Even on iPhone there is a huge case for this. I second this. It would be neat if it could simply be accessed with a different PIN, instead of some awful 2-step process of selecting an account and then entering a pin.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the best content on YouTube stops working in Jasmin soon. Google's official app shows pre-roll ads (and sometimes even ads in the middle of the video), and most of that revenue goes to the "licensed partner" who claims to own the video. Jasmin isn't showing those ads as far as I can tell.

I'm a bit surprised that Google doesn't provide the necessary APIs for clients to use to stream ads. Or do they provide them, but Jasmine does not implement them?

Just today I punched an address into Maps in iOS6, and it took me to another country. Not sure why it didn't find something a little closer to my current location, as that's what it was doing all day long without issue. Oh well. Other than that, Maps really hasn't had too much trouble finding the correct location for me by just entering a street number and name (no city or zip). The real problem I have is the coloring for the maps. The roads are almost impossible to see at some zoom levels. They need more contrast. I don't know if that's an Apple design decision, or a limitation of the map program, but it's as though no one bothered to evaluate the color scheme. Very surprising considering the level of detail Apple usually puts into things.

Seriously not trolling here (huge Mac fan who recently converted from ios to android). I'd be interested in the iPhone again if they got something like Swype. IPhone rocks in a lot of ways, but using that keyboard was enough to get me to switch away. I'm sure Apple could make something like that that would work fantastically.

How fast are you with Swype?

I'm clocking in at about 100wpm with Siri.

I'm not sure. When I want to dictate, I just use the dictation button on the swype keyboard and then I assume it is the same as Siri. I'm actually amazed at how fast and accurate it is.

For me, when I have to type, Swype is a godsend (and is one of the three reasons I switched). That said, I'm not trying to start a flame war here. There are a lot of things I miss about my old iPhone too.

Seriously not trolling here (huge Mac fan who recently converted from ios to android). I'd be interested in the iPhone again if they got something like Swype. IPhone rocks in a lot of ways, but using that keyboard was enough to get me to switch away. I'm sure Apple could make something like that that would work fantastically.

How fast are you with Swype?

I'm clocking in at about 100wpm with Siri.

Siri doesn't work so good in loud places or where data connection is spotty.Android's speech to text feature is actually better since it can be used where ever the keyboard can with jellybean were data connection is poor.

Siri isn't/can't be a good replacement for the keyboard in a lot of cases either.

I'd be interested in the iPhone again if they got something like Swype. IPhone rocks in a lot of ways, but using that keyboard was enough to get me to switch away. I'm sure Apple could make something like that that would work fantastically.

How fast are you with Swype?

I'm clocking in at about 100wpm with Siri.

Good question. I found a video demonstrating how Swipe is faster than the iPhone keyboard... so I tested it myself.

I can type significantly faster on my iPhone than the guy using the swipe keyboard.

I'm kind of clumsy and fat finger stuff all the time (not just on the ios keyboard). Whenever I have to type letter by letter it takes me ages. That is why Swype is so helpful to me. I really wished Apple would implement something like it (and then I'd be 1/3 of the way to switching back to an iPhone).

- Video playlists (which I actually don't think was ever on the iPhone, but it was on the iPod Touch in iOS 3 maybe?)- I also need a list view when looking for videos on a shared server, scrolling through 300+ movie covers is slow, inefficient, and laggy as hell

I'm not sure. When I want to dictate, I just use the dictation button on the swype keyboard and then I assume it is the same as Siri. I'm actually amazed at how fast and accurate it is.

For me, when I have to type, Swype is a godsend (and is one of the three reasons I switched). That said, I'm not trying to start a flame war here. There are a lot of things I miss about my old iPhone too.

I could never get used to Swype, I ended up using SwiftKey in the end. The predictive nature of it was neat, and it was fun to have it type out entire sentences for me in suggestions.

The only thing that I truly hate about iOS 6 is a very basic feature that was removed from Mail. In every previous version, you could use Settings to control the minimum size of type in emails.That's been removed, so instead of nice, large type that I used to get, I'm stuck with the tiny default type size. It's been a serious irritation for me. I can't understand why something so basic — which was already implemented from the beginning — was removed.

It's still there, it's just now in Settings > General > Accessibility > Large Text. It sets the text size for Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Messages and Notes.

I only use iOS on an iPad so I'm coming from a different angle I guess. I would have liked them to open up their iChat or iMessage or whatever it's called to other apps. I can use google talk with all voice and video bells and whistles on both my sgs2 and my iPad but when people send messages (particularly grouped messages) from iPhones to me I get them as texts with subject lines a-la emails and whenever anyone in the mass text replies to the originator I also get their random replies as texts. Grouping SMS and IM is a great thing but without even third party apps being able to use it on other platforms I have to deal with these idiosyncrasies. I'd love to even be able to install a 3rd party messaging app on my Android phone and iPad that handles GTalk as well as iMessage stuff the way it's supsed to be handled.

Other than that not too much of the iOS stuff affects me. The things missing from it are generally handled well by Cydia apps on my iPad.

2) DEAR GOD THE PODCASTS APP IS A STEAMING PILE. Over the course of several updates, it has gotten marginally better, but it's still a battery hog, it still randomly marks old podcasts as unplayed (I had one feed where it marked all 300+ episodes as unplayed), it still randomly fails to auto-download. All of the hate that's been directed at the new Maps? Multiply that a thousandfold and that's how I feel about the Podcasts app. I think it's the worst piece of Apple software I've ever used.

I coincidentally tweeted the 140-character version of that sentiment 2 days ago!

How does one delete an episode without making the app act a if the episode never existed? Oh, you don't. Great.

What about seeing how much time is left on an episode? Better tap the artwork, 'cause they hid that underneath, right next to the anachronistic tape reels.

Want Siri to load up a podcast? Well, if she can find it ("NERDIST, goddamn it! Not NERDIEST!"), she'll still use the Music app, not Podcasts. Open the "Now Playing" link from the tray and you see the episode right in there. Hit Back, though, and you see it's an orphan, alone in the world.

If Maps rated an executive apology, Podcasts rates one of those "sorry I fucked a marmoset" speeches politicians have to give while standing beside their glassy-eyed wives.

@Jokotai - The ability to move apps to SD is apparently developer's choice. I've moved about 3/4 of my apps onto SD, but the option is greyed out for the rest of them. The same situation applied on my previous phone; I don't know exactly when Google added the ability to move 'em to SD, but it was at least two years ago.

I meant specifically the apps that Google has developed, not Android itself. A case in point is Google Music, which is fairly large app-wise, and cannot be moved to the SD card for the sake of having a widget.

It would be really nice if you could add one or two other people to your iTunes Match account to share music. There's no reason that the music collection my wife and I both own should only be allowed to sync up with one iPhone or iPad. But for her to sync up with it, she has to input my Apple ID which messes up iCloud email and a host of other things.

You can go into the music section of settings and log in with a different account for iTunes Match and iTunes than for iCloud. This will make it easier to share music and still have separate iCloud accounts.

Also the article says you have to disable iTunes Match and re-enable to delete music and this is not true. Go to settings > usage and locate music in the list of apps under storage. Tap on it and you'll see "all music" and just swipe across that and hit delete. Music files are cleared, iTunes Match is still intact. Still not ideal as deleting individual songs but better than logging out and back into iTunes Match.

The only thing that I truly hate about iOS 6 is a very basic feature that was removed from Mail. In every previous version, you could use Settings to control the minimum size of type in emails.That's been removed, so instead of nice, large type that I used to get, I'm stuck with the tiny default type size. It's been a serious irritation for me. I can't understand why something so basic — which was already implemented from the beginning — was removed.

It's still there, it's just now in Settings > General > Accessibility > Large Text. It sets the text size for Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Messages and Notes.

Thank you so much for this. An article for Macworld had said the choice was gone, so I hadn't thought of looking for it in a place such as this.